Our Executive Director Dr Oliver Hartwich joined Ryan Bridge on Ryan Bridge TODAY to discuss the open letter signed by 50 business leaders. It opposes a run of election-year policies from splitting up supermarket chains and threatening to nationalise banks, to rewriting signed mining and retirement village contracts.

Oliver argued the specific policies matter less than the pattern: what he called "post-rational politics," where any proposal is fair game as long as it polls well with focus groups, regardless of the damage to property rights or freedom of contract. Pushing back on the suggestion raised by Green co-leader Marama Davidson. That this is just wealthy business owners protecting their own interests, he argued secure property rights benefit the whole country, not just individual firms, pointing to how ownership incentivises people to invest, maintain relationships, and think long-term, whether it's a home, a business, or a supermarket chain. He also noted that despite years of Commerce Commission scrutiny, no one, including the National Party itself, has actually accused the supermarkets of anti-competitive behaviour, making the case for restructuring the industry anyway a matter of political convenience rather than evidence.